Saturday, November 3, 2012

NWC Counseling is...

Ahh...the beginning of something wonderful!

Welcome to NWC Counseling's Blog! I'm very familiar to the blogging game, but honestly this opportunity to blog about my business, counseling and encouragement is truly such an exciting venture! First and foremost, let me give my audience an idea of who I am and what NWC Counseling is all about.

My name is Niya Calderon, and I'm a licensed professional counselor (provisional) in South Carolina. I think three words that describe are: Tenacious, creative and exuberant. I enjoy reading, cooking and spending time with my family (husband and 1 year old!). Ok, enough about me.

NWC Counseling is counseling practice located in downtown Columbia. I always knew I wanted to go into private therapy, so that I could have the freedom and creativity to work with my clients. However- it wasn't until I began working in the field of therapeutic foster care that I saw how many of my foster care children were poorly treated. Being seen at mostly overworked and underpaid state mental health agencies or burned out private therapists found no longer effective. It saddened me, as most counseling practices began closing their doors for medicaid patients, leaving most of the children forced to attend the counties mental health agencies. I watched young children be seen by a psychiatrist for 15 minutes and prescribed a slew of medications that were general guesses. I saw teens who saw counselors and be unable to verbalize their goals, or if they felt they were making progress. I witnessed foster parents so frustrated with both private and state funded mental health services for the poor quality they received.

That's when the vision for NWC Counseling was birthed. I wanted to create a counseling practice that would offer valuable services at an affordable cost. I wanted to meet with individuals, couples and/or families, give them the time and attention they needed, assist them as much as I could, encourage them in every step and help them become they person or family they desired to be. I wanted to do all this without breaking their wallets. Right now -- I realized people just needed a person to talk to. Someone to encourage and walk with them through their most difficult, most frustrating or more joyous moments. And to be quite honest, I really believe that the people who need it the most are the ones who don't have insurance, are limited by their insurance coverages (only can be seen X amount of times) or can't fathom shelling out $60-100.00 per session (which is the average rate in South Carolina).

I am a christian by faith and I believe God has blessed with me the gift of Exhortation, the gift of encouraging/teaching others. And I'm only doing what he has asked me to do.

I am so excited to begin this venture and it's my hope/prayer that everyone that comes across this blog will be touched, encouraged, taught and above all BLESSED! Please see my links (right side bar) for my Facebook page, Twitter page and Website homepage for more information on my counseling practice, services, and contact information! Also please enter your email on the side bar to subscribe to my newsletters to get up to date information on events, updates and valuable information!

Ciao.

P.S. Thanks to JCalMedia (http://www.jcalmedia.com) for creating and designing my webpage and blog page! You are awesome!